How Do You Archive?

kdec_2

Member
Hi, was wondering how others archive their work.

Here's basically how we do it. Retrospect automatically backs up our Mac server nightly. And as our server fills up we archive files on DVDs and use disk tracker to catolog, and then delete the old jobs.

And since I now have a little better understanding of how the files on our PC (esko) server act while copying them to the Mac, thanks to this thread...
http://printplanet.com/discuss/thread.jspa?threadID=1552&tstart=0

I guess we'll just copy the PC files to the Mac server and do as before.

But, is there a more effecient way for all of this?
 
Re: How Do You Archive?

EskoSuite 7 ( the upgrade of SCOPE 3 ) has a archive feature that may be added. The benefits are that it saves all the metadata about the Job ( tickets, Job settings, etc..) with the files, and can be configured to backup to any number of media. These backups are all written and tracked in a BackStage database making finding and retrieving Jobs from within BackStage very simple. Please contact your sales rep, or service and support for more info. - peter
 
Re: How Do You Archive?

This has been yet another sales pitch by your friendly forum vendors.



We back up to AIT tapes every night via flashnet and weekly do a full back up to another raid partition. We have a contract with a vendor who manages all this but we are going to give 'em the boot next year so I'd be interested to hear what everyone is doing as well without the sales pitch aspect.

Sorry hungover and ornery and vendors are an easy target.
 
Re: How Do You Archive?

Retrospect using a LTOII tape library. NIghtly backups and monthly archive of closed jobs. I'm on nexus and I have a AIT tape on that box to backup the links and pages for exact reprints. It is also on a nightly basis and I just delete files to make room as needed. No archiving on the Nexus box.
 
Re: How Do You Archive?

You leave all your links and pages on your box for reprints? Except of course the ones you back up.

If I could ask, what is the reason for leaving them on the nexus box? Still relatively new to nexus so I'm curious. We have all our links and pages dropped on our server in the corrosponding job folder by customer and product line.

Raster, vector or Screen page? Sorry for being curious George.

Thanks
 
Re: How Do You Archive?

Time machine is amazing for daily back ups

We archive actual job dockets afterwards with dvd's & also use disk tracker

Edited by: seaemwhykay on Jan 25, 2008 3:48 PM
 
Re: How Do You Archive?

Do you have a script that does that for you? How do you map the links & pages to your file server? Unless you are using their system to create the folders. I know they have a product that does that but we don't have that.

I used them when a job comes back for a reprint, just pull them off tape with my impo file and resend to nexus. It has saved me tons on reprints due to things going wrong when I was resending these jobs from the application level.

We are using Raster workflows...
 
Re: How Do You Archive?

+*I guess we'll just copy the PC files to the Mac server and do as before*+

We have done this for a while with many many issues. Writing protocoles between Mac and PC's being the number one troublemaker. Many archived files being brought back came back as useless Unix files.
Do proper testing before. You may loose usefull files. Big warning!!!!!
 
Re: How Do You Archive?

G_town,
You may not have noticed that the poster stated they already have an EskoArtwork PC server, ( this would be BackStage ). I was simply stating that within their existing framework they could incorporate an archiving tool based on this. One of many advantages for this printshop would be the automation possibilities such as auto-archiving complete Job file and information after the job has been send to CtP, then the ease of retrieval back into their _existing_ system at a later date. I could bullet-point about twenty more advantages, but my advice to this forum member is to contact their EskoArtwork rep for more information rather to have me go through the litany ( sales pitch ) here.

I guess this could open up an entirely new thread about the participation on this forum by forum members who work for prepress solution providers. Personally I learn a lot from the postings of other 'vendor' reps like Mark Tonkovich and others. I have found that people in these positions are genuinely offering advice and solutions they feel would benefit the original poster of the question. I have found that even when two vendors post in answer to the same question that their postings are first informative to the original question, and secondly respectful to other postings be they from another vendor or someone from within the industry like yourself. The wealth of varying experiences and prospectives that come into these forums is always enlightening. For me that goes for the postings I read from _all_ the members of this forum community.

Personally my participation in this forum is to stay informed, and on occasion to help inform based on ( just like everyone else ) my personal experiences and prospective. EskoArtwork neither pays, supports, or encourages, me to post here. However I would feel it inappropriate not to openly publish that I do work for EskoArtwork. When someone posts a question on these forums to which I know of a possible solution, I will point them to the information and let them know, if they'd like to followup on it, how to contact someone.

- peter
 
Re: How Do You Archive?

""" Luc St-Pierre

We have done this for a while with many many issues. Writing protocoles between Mac and PC's being the number one troublemaker. Many archived files being brought back came back as useless Unix files.
Do proper testing before. You may loose usefull files. Big warning!!!!! """

Come to think of it, I do remember one time ( that I noticed ) fonts became "useless Unix files" after copying them back to the Mac.

So how do you get around this potential problem?

We have an external DVD burner that we tried to hook up to our Esko server, but with Windows 3000, it wasn't just a plug n' play. Our Co. EggHead ( who just quit ) gave it a quick try before he left, but ended up hookiing it up to one of the Esko work stations w/Windows XP. That worked fine, but we'd have to first copy all the files to the work station, then burn them.

A pain in the butt, but maybe if that's a safer way to do it. Maybe we should.

Peter, we are aware of the "EskoSuite 7 ( the upgrade of SCOPE 3 ) has a archive feature that may be added." But i'm just seeing trying to find out what options I have.
 
Re: How Do You Archive?

Just out of curiosity, does it help to ZIP the Job files before archiving them to prevent truncated file names and changes in fonts etc.. ?
 
Re: How Do You Archive?

Actually that is what saved me from the corrupted fonts, we still had the original Cust. files zipped in with the rest of the job on the Esko.
 
Re: How Do You Archive?

We use static links now but in the past they didn't so older legacy files we need to go into the interpret PS module and point to the correct folder in the pages template on our server.

We screen page every thing due to heavy finger pointing from the pressroom when they couldn't match color in the past (you must not have sent it to plate right etc...) it least they understand that very little can go wrong if we are using 1 bits.
 
Re: How Do You Archive?

uh huh, odd you vendors never recommend other companies software/harware over your own. Ok maybe never is to strong a word but you get my point.

I have no doubt that you are here to learn and help it's just to often that help comes in the form of a sales pitch (a certain agfa rep comes to mind as well).

But hey it's a free country so this is just one mans opinion, and you know what the say about opinions.... ;)

Peace
 
Re: How Do You Archive?

Our archiving process is a combination of an automated and manual process...

We wrote a custom program that captures a list of all our jobs on our customer file servers. The list is then sorted by job number and based on each jobs job number, the program looks to see if said job number is still active in our MIS system (EFI HagenOA). If said job has been closed, the job is moved to an archive folder. The program also removes a specific subfolder within each job folder that is used to hold data that won't be archived (ie, old proof files, etc.). The jobs are sorted by month and a list is printed which is used by an operator to manually archive the data to tape.

The program is run every 1 to 2 weeks depending on work load and we keep our tapes sorted by month/year (ie, a tape will only contain a specific month/year jobs and when that tape gets full, a new tape is added which also will only the specific month/year jobs).

Hope this helps!
Jon :)
 
Re: How Do You Archive?

We have an Apple XServe/XRaid combo that holds our live jobs. As they are finished, we usually wait around 5-10 days then we move all of the files (live art, Quark.Indesign, fonts, and eps files/fpos for Rampage...) over to a peecee running ArcServe. There, we run redundant tape backups to AIT2 & DLT. We archive everything that comes into the shop, so you can imagine the huge stash of tapes we have accumulated over the years.


It works perfectly & never lost a file since we've moved to redundant tapes...

bob vayda
excell color graphics
 

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